A Daily Mirror news editor refused to pay private investigators without being sure they used legal methods, a court heard.
Anthony Harwood told the High Court trial looking into Prince Harry’s privacy claims that he had no reason to believe they were breaking the law.
He is shown several payments he authorized to an investigator who stole documents from celebrity junk.
Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) disputes the claims against them.
During a five-hour questioning, Mr Harwood was shown dozens of emails and invoices offering payments from the Mirror to a number of private investigators in the UK and US.
These alleged investigators accessed phone numbers from former directories, Social Security information and financial records, and used other methods to obtain information.
Lawyer David Sherborne, who is representing the plaintiffs in the case, said the phrase “special investigation” was often used, which he said indicated illegal gathering of information, but Mr Harwood said the newspaper was paying for information that could be obtained legally .
Mr Harwood was questioned about his links to Benjamin Pell, a freelancer who once specialized in rummaging through the rubbish bins of famous people for information about them.
He agreed that Pell was “famous” for working for other newspapers, including the now-defunct News of the World, but said he had no direct involvement with him personally.
Mr Sherbourne presented Mr Harwood with hundreds of pounds worth of invoices paid by the Daily Mirror to Pell.
They included sums for stories about David Beckham, the All Saints band and the BBC’s then director-general John Burt – and were signed off by Mr Harwood.
The former news editor said he was “just there to note” the payments. Asked if he was “just giving up through payments”, he said yes, adding: “You wouldn’t have time to open every single one. It was a bookmark system.”
He referred to the pressure of “putting things in the paper”, saying “anything up to £400 I would probably tick off”.
Mr Sherborne asked if it was Mr Harwood’s responsibility to ensure that journalists and the work they do is legal.
He said he assumed it was and had “no reason to believe” they were breaking the law.
Mirror Group Newspapers admits that illegal methods were used to collect some stories, but denies that senior editors knew and does not agree that wrongdoing was widespread.
More than 100 alleged victims claim their information was obtained illegally by the Mirror newspapers through phone hacking and so-called phishing. Four cases, including Prince Harry’s, are being heard in the current trial.
Mr Harwood’s line emerged in a controversial 2004 Daily Mirror article which revealed the identity of Chelsy Davy, Prince Harry’s then-girlfriend, who was described as a “mystery blonde” at the time.
The plaintiffs say the story was obtained through illegal methods.
Mr Harwood said the identity was first reported by the Daily Mail and he was confident the Mirror’s version of the story had been obtained legitimately.
Mr Harwood worked as a desk editor between 1995 and 2003 before moving to New York as a US newspaper editor. He returned to the UK in 2005, becoming Head of News.
He was called as a witness as he now freelances providing “journalistic support” to lawyers for Mirror Group Newspapers defending against privacy claims.
Mr Harwood told the court: “In my experience phone hacking is not common or widespread in the Mirror news desk – I was not aware of anyone in my department hacking phones. We just didn’t do it.”
He said there was nothing untoward about the number of celebrity phone numbers he had, claiming it was necessary for a news editor to hold them in case they needed to be contacted urgently to respond to an article.
Mr Harwood said the numbers were not used for hacking or any other illegal method.
In earlier evidence, a technical manager at Mirror Group Newspapers, Peter Rettig, was questioned about why backup copies of key executives’ email accounts in the early 2000s were largely blank.
He said users were encouraged to delete old emails to reduce the amount of data stored by the system.
Mirror Group Newspapers provided a snapshot of its email data in 2011 to the Leveson Inquiry into Press Standards.
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